The Peculiar Events of Europa Base Alpha - Experimentation

The Third Event

The entire purpose of Europa Base Alpha was to look for any and all signs of life, something that would change how were viewed our existence in the universe, something that would lead us to have to rewrite all of our textbooks. We had landed on the site that we thought would bring us the results we wanted, the Sea of Darwin, as it we had named it. Initial scans and probes had indicated that there was volcanic activity fairly close to the surface of the planet, which made it extremely likely that there was a liquid water ocean beneath this area; liquid water being what we thought to be the key ingredient of life. We had spent six and a half years searching Darwin, six and a half with no results that we could show, meaning the mission was a total waste of time. That was until the sixty seventh month on the expedition, when the event happened. We knew that if we found any kind of life on this Europa, that it would be indicate that life was brought to our planet for an external source. What we found we even more amazing and beautiful. Yet we knew that the implications of what we found were so extreme, that we knew steps had to be taken to get the information known, and not just be hidden from sight. None of us had expected to find something on this scale, something that could change view, and shatter religions around the world.

Some people would try to clam that it supported their religious beliefs, but the ice that the object was concealed in was estimated to be around three billion years old. We knew that at this depth there was no liquid water, we had known that the Sea of Darwin would start around seven thousand feet below the ice, we were now around three thousand feet down, and there was no chance that this had been liquid water here before 4 billion years ago. We expected to see something extremely unfamiliar and amazing that was like nothing that we had ever seen before. Instead we were greeted by something entirely different, something that wasn't unfamiliar at all, but still in its own way amazing. The ten metres of ice obscured our view a little, but we could still make out what the object was. Staring back at was a female human, older than any life that we could have expected to find on our own planet or our own.

"You realize what you're asking me to do don't you, you realize how monumental this is?" Asked Casey, more as a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway,

"Yes, it means you will be the first person to make contact with this ancient human." I said, "Even if it means that you are cutting him open."

"Maybe I don't want that kind of responsibility Miller, maybe I don't want to be that one person who missed something massive that will end up killing all of humanity." She said standing up from her desk and looking out of her window. She looked into the operating theatre where she would conduct the autopsy on this ancient woman. "But I see that I have no choice in matter, so there really is no point in arguing." I didn't say anything for a minute as she was right, and I didn't want to seem arrogant of the fact that this wasn't me asking her to conduct the autopsy, it was me ordering her to conduct it.

"It's not just me ordering you do this Casey, you are also the most qualified for the job." I paused for a minute and stepped closer to Casey "Believe me, I wouldn't ask you to do something that I didn't think you could handle." I assured her putting my hand on her shoulder. She turned and gave me a smile, then without a word, began to leave the room. "It should be another day or two before we extract the body, and are able to defrost it properly." I stated. She turned back to look at me, and gave me a nod to acknowledge that she had heard what I had said. There was another moment of silence before she spoke.

"Do you think history will remember us for this, the expedition that found the three billion year old human?" Casey asked, almost worrying that the answer would be yes, even though she knew that it was.

"They will, be prepared though, there will be backlash when we get back home."

"What do you mean?" Casey asked. Dr. Casey Langley had never been in a situation where the public spotlight had been turned on her, she was just the medical doctor on the expedition. I, however, had been in a situation where the spotlight had turned on me. Back sixteen years before this mission had even launched, I had been on the first manned exploration flight to Mars in 2035, which had found evidence of liquid water under the surface, less the fifty thousand years before.